Rafe, twenty feet away, sipped a coffee, watching. He nodded to Frank, who was looking at magazines at a stand on the other side of Pleski’s bench, and Frank took off following the short man in jeans. Pleski walked out of the terminal, heading toward the taxi stand. Rafe followed Pleski out.

Neither Rafe nor Frank paid any attention to another newly-arrived passenger, a tall Albanian man in a tan leather jacket, who had just come in on a flight from Doha. The Albanian pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number.

“This is Stavro,” he said. “I’m here.”

“Excellent,” said Majid. “I look forward to meeting you.”

Rules

RULES

It started with the Jews and ended with some Muslims.

In the 1990s, Swiss banks were sued by survivors of Jewish Holocaust victims who claimed, with just cause, that they had been denied access, by Swiss bank secrecy laws and customs (not to mention greed and anti-Semitism), to money in accounts opened by relatives who’d subsequently been murdered by the Nazis. Legal action, public opinion, and pressure from the United States government prevailed. Settlements were made, accounts were unlocked, and a hole was knocked in Swiss bank secrecy.

Then, after 9/11, the United States government, trying to track and eliminate terrorist Islamist financing (not to mention Mafia money laundering and old-fashioned red-blooded American tax evasion) led an assault on what remained of that secrecy and succeeded in imposing a requirement that banks and other financial institutions determine that all monies submitted for deposit be vouched for, accounted for, clean and legitimate in all regards.

In other words, kosher.

“It’s called KYC,” said Majid.

“Kentucky Fried Chicken?” said Stavro. He was taller than Majid, clean-shaven, with an unchanging stern expression that made it hard for Majid to believe that his visitor had just made a joke. But what else could it be? The man couldn’t be stupid. But, then, money didn’t always come with brains attached. So Majid took a middle ground—a slight smile and an explanation:

“K. Y. C. Know Your Client.”

“Yes,” said Stavro, not smiling back. “I didn’t think you were discussing Colonel Sanders. But this is just as preposterous.” He was looking at a questionnaire Majid had handed him. “You need to see my electric bill?”

“To establish your residence,” said Majid. “Any utility bill will do. You said your current home is in Bosnia?”

“Yes,” said Stavro. “It is. And I do have electric lights. But I would think that this is the only piece of paper that matters.” He reached into an inside jacket pocket and pulled out a white envelope and extracted a check payable to Sterling Wealth Management. He handed it to Majid.

“I trust that meets your minimum investment,” he said.

Majid held the check lightly. A slip of paper that would solve his immediate problem, give him time to recover from his Italian disaster.